Sheffield student to launch croquet competition

Nik Farah

A Sheffield University student is launching the city’s first student golf croquet championship, to be held later this year.

Jonathan Simpson set up the university’s croquet society 16 months ago, and the club has attracted 25 members.

Jonathan is now seeking more students, interested in learning to play golf croquet, to join the society and compete in the national student golf croquet championship that he is hosting in the city on April 8-9.

“It’s not exactly a sport that is well-represented among young people, but those who’ve tried it have found it really enjoyable and I decided it would be great to host an event that would pit our local players against others teams from around the UK.

“At the moment, I’ve already had eight other universities sign up to compete in the championship in the city in April, which is going to be nationally accredited by the governing body, the Croquet Association.”

Jonathan, who is studying medicine at the university, was first introduced to the sport by a friend in 2013.

“I really enjoyed it the first few times I played,” said Jonathan, who is originally from Durham.

“When I came to the city for university, I decided to launch a student society, which has really grown in popularity.

“We hold weekly sessions where we play singles or doubles and have already played against teams from other universities.

“I’d really like to try and get about 20 new members ahead of the championship.

“Golf croquet is fairly simple to learn so I’m confident that anybody signing up in the next few weeks could be playing quite decently by April.”

Golf croquet is simpler than the more well-known and complex association croquet, though both are played socially and competitively up to international level. While golf croquet still involves a great deal of skill and tactics, it is a quicker game - usually lasting about 50 minutes - and thought to be picked up more easily by beginners. In golf croquet, a hoop is won by the first ball to go through each hoop. Unlike association croquet, there are no additional turns for hitting other balls.